It's all fun and games,

until someone gets an eye poked out.. Isn't that what they say? I haven't seen a poked out eye yet, but we do manage to have a good time around the engine house. I've seen Backdraft and Ladder 49, and even Rescue Me on tv. Backdraft was a little over the top They'd all be dead by now running into burning buildings with no masks, turnout coats flapping in the breeze. Rescue Me was somewhat realistic in the fact that most of the stuff they talk about has probably happened in an engine house somewhere, sometime. Ladder 49 is as far as I'm concerned, pretty much dead on, except for inside the fires. Although, I understand that because it would be a pretty boring movie if they ran in a house and the screen went black because you can't see through the smoke. The scene where Joaquin Phoenix has his first fire gave me goosebumps because of the way they captured it. Scared but wanting to do everything right so bad in front of the other guys that you just tear in, all jumpy and rushing, trying to get the job done. That was an excellent scene. The other thing that the movie nailed was the practical jokes around the engine house. THAT happens constantly.

My first day at the firehouse, I was warned to always bring a couple changes in uniform. It is a common practice for somebody to be lurking on the roof with a 5 gal bucket full of water, waiting for someone to walk underneath. Let me tell you, it'll almost drop you to your knees if they hit you good.
I've seen guys hit with mashed potatoes, cake frosting and biscuits. I saw one guys roasted chicken turned the prettiest shade of blue, which wouldn't have been half as funny except he was so upset that he locked himself in the watch office to sulk for a while. I think the chicken still tasted fine...
We had a guy spend the night cutting 4x4's to length so he could jack up cars in the parking lot and set them so their tires were just off the ground. He worked all night on that one, only to be discovered at the last minute.
One guy was such a pain in the ass to everyone else, that he ended up with a dead fish stuck in the heater duct of his car. It probably wouldn't have been so bad, except he drove it home in the morning, parked it, then left for a 2 week summer vacation. He called when he got home begging for the location of the fish. His wife never rode in the car again.
It was common to tell an explorer or another firehouse visitor that spent the night with us that it was his "job" to wake up the district chief at midnight and remind him to take his medicine. The chief was pretty good natured about it, one explorer was so upset when he found out that the chief didn't take medicine that he never came back.
Plastic tumblers make a God awful sound when they're thrown into the bedroom in the middle of the night. So do china plates when they're spun on edge on a tile floor with the PA mike laying next to em. They'll spin for a long time...
Firecrackers thrown into a bathroom while you're on the toilet will literally scare the shit out of you.
There have been guys duct taped to a chair and set in the front yard under a sprinkler...
"Blue Boy" magazine subscriptions that no one signed up for, at least that's what they say.
The list goes on and on.
The only thing off limits in an engine house is our bunker gear. The guys like to play hard, but when the time comes, it's all serious. Everyone goes home at the end of the shift.